


The Consequences of Reality

by LadyAndHerCat



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, He’s working on it, His morals might be a little skewed tho, Kakashi-centric, Maybe a good teacher kakashi, No Beta, Panic Attacks, Trauma, definitely trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25265452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAndHerCat/pseuds/LadyAndHerCat
Summary: Kakashi passed a genin team. He’s gonna go have a panic attack in his closet now, ‘kay?Or; kakashi might be a little traumatized and a little broken, and his moral lines might be a little blurry, but he’s committed to this team now and they would live if it was the last thing he did.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Haruno Sakura, Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 16
Kudos: 260
Collections: Good Sensei Kakashi





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure the title really makes sense, but I couldn’t think of anything better. 
> 
> No beta, please tell me if there are errors or if you think something else would work better there.
> 
> 07/17 EDIT: proofread it and changed the summary. I think this one fits it better. Still not happy with the title.

He was halfway back to his tiny apartment when the implication of what he had done truly hit him. He passed a genin team. He had to _teach_ a genin team. He didn’t know how to teach! And they were genin, peacetime genin at that! Most shinobi barely considered genin ninja at all, especially not genin so green they’d probably grow if you stuck them in the ground! 

Though Sasuke didn’t when he used that headhunter jutsu on him... perhaps he should be in the ground longer. Wait, no, bad Kakashi. Joking does not count as coping. According to Inoichi at least. Moving on. 

He was supposed to train his sensei’s son, keep him safe, _teach_ him _(he was going to fail again, be alone again, he will break again and nothing will put him back together—_ ). 

No. _No._ He would keep them safe this time, he would, ( _he had to, he couldn’t pick himself back up again, not again—_ ). No, stop it, stop _panicking_ —breathe. Stop thinking and _breathe_. He couldn’t have a panic attack in the middle of the street or Gai will hover for a week, breathe. Breathe. Home first. He could panic there and Gai wouldn’t even have to know. Home first, and then panic. And then plan—stop. Breathe. 

Once he was home, he shoved himself into the back of his closet and let go of his fraying threads of self-control. 

After the panic faded a little and he could push it back into its little box, he slept. By now it was late and panic attacks were tiring. The nightmares wouldn’t let him sleep more than a couple of hours anyway. 

// 

Sleep helped push the panic away a little more. Enough, at least, that he could think. Okay. He could do this. Make a list, like Inoichi says. Make a list of what you know and make a list of what you don’t know. Okay. 

He was assigned a genin team. Fact. He passed a genin team. Fact. Therefore, he was a jonin-sensei. Fact. A jonin-sensei’s job is to teach their genin team. Fact. He had to teach the genin team he passed. Okay. Breathe. 

He didn’t know how to teach genin. One problem. One very _big_ problem. The closest thing to teaching he had ever done was drilling ANBU recruits! 

Even Tenzou hadn’t needed much guidance, at least not from him. His practical skills were on par by the time he was assigned to ANBU and interpersonal questions were much better handled by Gai or literally anyone other than him.

Really, assigning him a genin team was an awful idea. 

//

He was late to Team 7’s first training session. Even by his standards, he was late. 

He was only planning on being maybe half an hour late, an hour tops, but... he may have had another panic attack? ( _They were just so young and small and oblivious and his responsibility—_ ) 

This one wasn’t as bad, honest! But it was best that he got himself back together before going out in public, really, that incident does not need repeating. 

In the end, he chickened out and had them do D-ranks all day while he pretended to laze about with his book, internally struggling to rein in his panic. 

He continued to chicken out for a solid week. Every morning, he would freak out. ( _They were supposed to be his, be his pack, what if—_ ). Then he would steel himself to arrive hours late to training with some idiotic excuse—and do missions the rest of they day. Rinse and repeat. 

Today... was different. His nightmares woke him early, of course, but instead of Rin, Obito, Minato-sensei, his father, and the countless other occasions he had failed filling his dreams... it was the genin. Watching his new team die because he failed them ( _again, he would just fail again—_ ). His new team that he hardly even knew, that he hadn’t taken the time to get to know. His new students. That he was supposed to teach. Teach so that they would _live._ Naruto. Sakura. Sasuke. 

And he was failing them. That part wasn’t a nightmare. That was reality. That was what was happening. 

He could change that. This was the _one_ situation that he still had time to fix. He could still _fix_ this. 

Rin, Obito, Sensei... they were gone. He couldn’t change that. But his genin ( _and they were his, were pack_ ), he still had time to save them. To train them. To teach them. Like Minato-sensei taught him. 

In the early, dark hours of morning, he dug out weapons and supplies that he hadn’t needed since ANBU. And he prepared for something that was more difficult, stressful, and impossible than any ANBU mission. 

As the sky began to lighten, he sat, going over every lesson anybody had ever tried to teach him. His father. Minato-sensei. ANBU drill sergeants. Even Gai. And above all others, one lesson that Obito died to teach him. _Those who break the rules are trash. Those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash._

And as he set out for the training grounds, on time for the first time in years, he didn’t panic.

He didn’t panic, because today, he knew exactly what he was going to do.

He was going to train them like ANBU recruits are trained. He was going to put them through hell, push them past their breaking point and push some more. He was going to break them down and build them up again, stronger than before and closer to each other than brothers, so that they would rely on each other always. 

He was going to train them like Minato-sensei trained him. He was going to train them like every situation they went into was going to be so far out of their skill level it was practically a given that they wouldn’t come back. 

He was going to train them for war, so that maybe, this time, someone would outlive him. 

//


	2. Chapter 2

Morning training ended with his genin collapsed on the ground. A mere three hours of training left them spent. Yeah, he knew that ANBU was the best of the best and these were fresh out of the academy genin, but... really? He didn’t remember his genin team being this bad. Academy curriculum has really gone downhill since the war ended. 

If they couldn’t even make it through the morning, he would need to cut down the training schedule... and focus more on conditioning... and go over basic skills. If this was acceptable, he couldn’t know if the academy taught them essential skills like building a smokeless fire or disguising a chakra signature.

His genin needed a lot of work before they could reach any of his standards. 

Sakura had especially poor stamina and physical strength, though her basic jutsu and kata were textbook. Literally. Textbook. While her theoretical knowledge was acceptable for a newly-minted genin, the physical application of said knowledge needed a lot of work. She appeared to have a head for tactics though, which was good. Also, he should definitely check her chakra control. 

Naruto has the best endurance out of all of them, but everything else was just... sloppy. His weapons handling and taijustu were almost physically painful to watch, and his tactics were nonexistent. Spamming shadow clones did not count as tactics. He also suspected that Naruto’s reading skills were below even that of a wartime genin who graduated at six. But apparently pranking was excellent trap and stealth training. Definitely something to keep in mind. 

Sasuke’s weapons skills were passable for a genin and he actually knew a jutsu that wasn’t taught at the academy, but his attack patterns were utterly predictable and his stamina was only a little better than Sakura. He appears to have completely disregarded anything that is not clearly and immediately helpful to him. You know, things like identifying poison ivy. While that was an experience the kid was unlikely to forget, getting him to listen to things that he deemed irrelevant was almost definitely going to be an issue. 

And that wasn’t even including their interpersonal problems. His team had issues ghat were obvious even to Kakashi.

Sakura’s crush was impeding her ability to work with both her teammates. She refused to see any of Sasuke’s mistakes and she beat on Naruto for every other thing he said, mostly to defend her Sasuke-kun. He didn’t think violence between teammates was something he should promote... 

Sasuke clearly seemed to think himself superior to his teammates. While being worked into the ground alongside them might help that impression, it was a delusion he needed to break as soon as he could. His refusal to work with his teammates was completely unacceptable. And that wasn’t even touching his clear trauma. It didn’t take a genius to realize he definitely had trauma from the massacre.

Naruto was almost as big a mess as Sasuke. The isolation and abuse from the village clearly left marks. Kakashi would know how much being a social outcast hurt someone. Naruto seems to have reacted by becoming as loud and obnoxious as possible so as to be impossible to ignore. This directly clashed with Sasuke’s tendency to ignore things he didn’t like. 

Really, it wasn’t a good sign that Kakashi was better at communicating than them. 

His team was a mess. 

While he had clearly overestimated where their skill level was at, his plan to improve their teamwork should work just fine. 

This probably wasn’t very ethical, but it would be worth it if they survived. 

He started weaving together a strong genjutsu.

// 

During his... reflection on what made a team work, to be effective and cohesive, one particular example of teamwork stood out to him. ANBU. 

ANBU teams took on the hardest, trickiest, grisliest missions. Those teams had to trust each other completely, trust not only that their teammates were skilled enough to protect their backs and complete the mission, but also that when a mission went FUBAR, that they knew how their teammates would react, that they would salvage what they could and leave what couldn’t be saved, anything that could increase their chances at getting their team home alive. 

Above all else, that was what drew ANBU teams together. Situations where, if they didn’t trust one another, they would be dead. The stressful missions where one wrong move could bring everything crashing down and you had to believe your teammates would support you. 

During the war, there was teams like that. Teams that lived through things most didn’t. Teams that refused to work without their fellow survivors because they were the ones they trusted before all others. Sometimes they were the only ones they trusted.

He remembered one particular ANBU pair he had worked with. ANBU Bear and ANBU Hawk constantly bickered and argued about everything, from the best way to build a campfire to whether shuriken were superior to kunai. But on a mission, they worked as a seamless team, hardly even needing to speak. It was like a switch was flipped. As soon as a mission was completed—no, as soon as they returned home from a mission, because on the road was still part of the mission—it was back to arguing. 

He had started listening to rumors about them, rumors he had previously ignored. Rumors about how their first mission in ANBU went bad. Really, really bad. Client lied, the intel was bad, who knows why, but there was a common thread running through it all. The rest of their team ended up dead, ambushed on their way back after the mission was completed, and the whole thing was wrapped up in so much red tape and ‘classified’ stamps even an ANBU Captain couldn’t touch it.

Training helps familiarize the team with their comrades skills and how they react in particular scenarios. But this process took time to get results and didn’t always work. 

His team had time. The village wasn’t at war, their lives might not depend on split-second decisions and trust in their teammates to support them. But... every experienced shinobi had been on a mission that went south, where the situation wasn’t what they thought and people ended up dead. That really was the difference between a seasoned shinobi and a green one, if they had lived through a mission gone bad. 

So. In conclusion, the fastest, most effective way to build the kind of team he wanted his genin to be... was trauma. 

If this went wrong, it could break them. But if it went right... nothing would tear them apart. 

// 

Today was the first day Kakashi-sensei showed up for training on time. Then, she had been excited that maybe he would actually teach them something this time. Now, as she lay on the ground completely exhausted, she kind of hated it. 

As she lay there regretting her life choices, something.... changed. The very air seemed to grow heavy, grew... darker.

She could see that it made Kakashi-sensei nervous. It was like he was dreading something he knew was coming. 

Just as she opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, the village alarm sounded. 

She had memorized the book on village emergency procedures; it’s not like it was hard to do. The chapter about the village alarms sprang to mind, as clearly as if she had the book in her hands. 

This particular alarm meant that enemy forces had breached the village walls. Panic started to grow in her belly, climbing her lungs and making it hard to breathe. 

Then Kakashi-sensei was standing in front of her, hands on her shoulders, grounding her, tamping down her fears. 

“Sakura. I have to go. I will be needed in the fight. You know emergency procedures best, so I’m leaving you in charge. Getting to safety should be your first priority. Stick together. Keep each other safe.” And then he was gone. 

Panic tried to spread inside her again, and she did her best to push it back down because she had a job to do. It didn’t work nearly as well as Kakashi-sensei’s reassuring presence. 

Next to her, Naruto was yelling at Sasuke because he had tried to leave by himself and Sasuke was answering in monosyllables. 

Sakura kept trying to push back her panic, tuck it away in her mind to make room for village emergency procedure. She smacked Naruto upside the head, more out of habit than anything, reaching for familiarity in unfamiliar ground. 

Follow instructions. That’s all she had to do. Following instructions would keep them safe and that was her job. 

So she gathered her nerves and her teammates and she started running.


	3. Chapter 3

Carefully, carefully, he cemented the genjutsu in their minds. It was a delicate spider’s web that he has woven, walking the fine line between helping them grow and potentially debilitating trauma, between scaring them and terrifying them. Between a situation that they had to work together to scrape through and one that was hopeless. 

He would have to closely monitor them, to make sure that it didn’t become too much, and to subtly encourage cooperation. And, of course, to make sure none of them broke through the genjutsu. 

The Uchiha were renowned for their skill with genjutsu, sharingan or not, and Sakura’s chakra control was stellar. He wasn’t sure if genjutsu or medical jutsu would be a better fit for her. Both were rather stereotypical fields for a kunoichi, but if she had the skills... 

But that was not relevant right now. He was... worried, about his genin. What if it didn’t work how he wanted it to? What if it did break them? Even just one of them? There is no way the Hokage would let him keep his genin then. 

Really, having doubts after he had committed to his plan? He had been out of ANBU too long if he had slipped that much. ANBU couldn’t have doubts if they wanted to live. Doubts meant hesitation and hesitation meant death. A split-second decision can be the difference between coming home and coming home in a black-capped scroll. 

But these were _his genin_. How this _plan_ affected them would affect the rest of their lives. He had to get this one right. 

If he broke the Last Uchiha or the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, the Council would murder him before the Hokage had a chance to skin him alive. Not that any of them cared what happened to the civilian girl, but that just meant he had to car— _protect_ her more. That was how that worked, right? 

// 

Naruto watched as Sasuke ran away, insistent that he didn’t need _them_ , they would just drag him down. 

That was alright. He could keep Sakura-chan safe all by himself, they didn’t need Sasuke! 

But Kakashi-sensei has wanted them to stay together... but it wasn’t his fault that Sasuke had run off by himself! Yeah, yeah, it would be fine. 

Naruto watched Sasuke get cut down right in front of him, Sakura doing her best to fight, but quick to follow. 

He wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t keep her safe, keep _either_ of them safe. He wasn’t good enough, fast enough, _strong enough_ to keep his team alive by himself. He had to be stronger, had to keep his team _together._

The world washed away and he was back at the beginning. 

// 

Inside the genjutsu, Sasuke watched as Sakura was killed in front of him, Naruto screaming as another shinobi pulled him away after he tried to charge at the first one—the one that _killed Sakura_ —and ran a sword through him. His teammates’ empty eyes stared up at him. Their bodies lay at his feet because he had left them behind. They were dead because of _him_. This was his fault, his fault— 

The world spun and he was at the training ground again, Sakura grabbing them both by the wrist again, running towards the evacuation shelters again. 

Following evacuation protocol. Right. And he needed to stay with his teammates, because he had to keep them _safe_.

// 

The genjutsu was rather tricky. 

Each of his genin was experiencing a different result of the same actions, but the genjutsu has to tie them together so that they could be influenced by their teammates’ new choices as the prior experiences affected them. 

It wouldn’t do for the growth he was trying to encourage to stagnate because their teammates’ choices didn’t change. It had to be carefully calculated so that his genin were developing both at similar rates and the mentality he wanted. 

Without experiencing _too_ much trauma.

Really, he thought it was going rather well so far. 

// 

Sakura tried. _She tried_. And tried. 

And failed. Again and again and _again_. She wanted to _scream_ with rage and frustration and grief, no matter that her mother said it was _unladylike_. She didn’t really _care_ what her mother thought right now. This time, _this time_ , she would keep them alive. 

She had to. She might just break if she lost them both again. 

But this time, they stayed together. This time, they made it to the evacuation shelters, alive. They even picked up a couple civilians along the way. Kakashi-sensei found them at some point and told them that he was proud of how well they did. 

When the world jerked and she was back at the training grounds, she just about cried. 

But there were no alarms going off and Kakashi-sensei didn’t have to leave and she didn’t have to be in charge any more. 

Next to her, she could see how Sasuke’s hands shook and how Naruto was very carefully not looking at any of them, while also scooting closer to them as subtly as he could. That is, not subtly at all. She really did start crying then. 

Just like that, she had Sasuke pressed against her side and Naruto’s arms wrapped around her while Kakashi-sensei knelt in front of then, not touching, but murmuring things that she wasn’t quite paying enough attention to for them to make sense. 

She reached out to him though, because he was here. If Sensei was here, she didn’t have to be strong, didn’t have to be in charge, because he would keep them safe. 

// 

When Sakura burst into tears, he kinda panicked. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was just a genjutsu, I really didn’t think this through, I’m sorry, I thought it would help your teamwork—“ He was really, really trying not to upset her further. Crying children were not within his skill set. Also, he was fairly sure that none of them were actually processing what he was saying, given that Sakura was now leaning against him, with attached boys, still crying. 

Maybe he should wait until she has finished crying and has calmed down a little bit before trying to explain that he did this to them to improve their teamwork. Because this does not seem like it went well.


	4. Chapter 4

He broke them he broke them, he can’t fix this, he’s an awful teacher, letting him around kids (>em>genin, his genin, so little so breakable, help—) was a horrible idea, why did he agree to this, he knew, everyone knew, that he was too broken, too scarred, to be anything but a leech to them, leeching away their innocence and hope ( _but if it kept them alive, would it be worth it—_ ), why did the _Hokage_ agree to this— 

No, no panic attacks in public, remember, he had to keep himself together, at least until he got home, why wasn’t he going home yet? 

Right. The genin still lightly sniffling in his lap might have something to do with that. Can’t go home, can’t stay here, can’t keep his genin ( _his, his, protect them—)_ safe either, he already broke them, he wasn’t trying to but it was his fault, his fault— 

And his breathing might have gotten a little erratic and his genin might have noticed, because Sakura was now kneeling in font of him, looking worried ( _can’t even comfort them right, his fault, his fault_ —), Sasuke still clinging to her, though Naruto was up and apparently yelling at him. How long had he been doing that?

“—you alright, Kakashi-Sensei, can you hear me? Your breathing doesn’t sound right, are you okay? Maybe we should get a doctor Sakura, I don’t—“ 

“I don’t think we could take him to the hospital like this. One of us would have to go fetch a doctor and I—“ Sakura was saying something about getting a medic, but he didn’t need a medic, he knew exactly what this is and he just needed a little time to get himself under control again. But one of his genin would _leave_ and go get one if he didn’t tell them otherwise _right now._

“N-no, don’t—don’t need to—‘m fine,” he gasped out. 

“Kakashi-Sensei, you are not _fine_.” Sakura told him sternly. She seemed more... sure of herself, now. Determined. Even if the Hokage took them away, at least he taught them something. ( _Can’t take them away, can’t, can’t_ —). Giving them to him might have been an awful, awful idea, but they were _his_ now, damnit. 

“Just—just a—panic attack. I’ll—be fine.” He _would_ be fine. Once he stopped _panicking_. But he failed them. ( _Failed again, they were gone_ —). The Hokage would find out and he would frown and sigh and _take them away. (He can’t lose his pack again, he can’t, he can’t, he’ll break this time—)._ Stop it. They were still alive and _right here—_

//

“—usually associated with anxiety or trauma.” Sasuke was only sort of listening to Sakura explain panic attacks to Naruto. He was a little more focused on the fact that, that thing that happened when he thought too much about That Night or That Man or how _his family was gone_ and it felt like he couldn’t breathe, _had a name_. It happened to other people. It happened to _Sensei_. It wasn’t just him. 

And if Sensei got them... maybe they didn’t mean that he was weak, too weak to handle the sharingan or face Itachi. 

But right now, Kakashi-Sensei was having one. A panic attack. And Sasuke _knew_ what that felt like, the struggle to breathe, how it left him anxious around crowds for days, how having one almost _always_ meant having more. 

And... maybe he could help? 

// 

When he felt fingers wrap around his wrist, it startled him. And a startled shinobi was a _bad thing._ Reflex screamed at him to _attack first, figure it out later_ , fighting with his brain’s knowledge that only his genin were close enough to reach him, therefore _this wasn’t an enemy._ Before he could corral his reflex and his brain into agreement, he jerked his hand away. 

And Sasuke, because that was the genin that approached him, clearly took that as _he was unwelcome here_ , and began to withdraw. 

Before he could think about it too much, he grabbed Sasuke’s wrist and pulled the boy closer. These were his genin. His pack. He didn’t want them to leave. 

Sasuke settled next to him, shoulder pressing against his side. After a moment, Sakura sat down at his other side, more hesitant, but settled down under his arm, hands fisted in his vest. As soon as Sakura was settled, Naruto climbed right into him lap, like some kind of puppy. 

He... probably wouldn’t admit this to anyone, but... it helped. To have his pack there with him, touching him, where he knew they were safe and protected. 

It took... less time than usual for him to calm down. Mostly calm down. And he sat there with his genin, his _pack_ , and just breathed. Sasuke was still latched into one hand, and Sakura was pressed into his side, mostly asleep. His other hand was carding through Naruto’s hair, because it couldn’t be that much different than keeping puppies, right? 

He... probably needed some help with this whole training thing. Someone to make sure he wasn’t pushing them too hard or forgetting something. He could probably talk Gai into supervising for a few hours a couple times a week. And Kurenai was a soft heart, it wouldn’t be hard to convince her to help with a little genjutsu training. Asuma would be easy once Kurenai was involved, he could teach them a few tricks. 

Tenzo owed him a few favors too, he could sweettalk him into watching them for a few days, make sure he wasn’t getting too rusty since he left ANBU. Although he should probably wait a while before introducing them to Tenzo...

But for now, he had his pack with him. He could figure the rest out as it comes. He could keep a few people around to make sure he didn’t mess them up too bad, and _he_ would be around to keep them safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I had this idea for a different fic stuck in my head for months, and I finally started writing it, and then I started _posting_ it... and then I started feeling guilty for leaving this fic like it was when I had promised to come back to it. 
> 
> It’s not quite the longfic I had in mind, and I’m not even sure if it makes sense because it’s the middle of the night and I barely proofread it after I spent the last, like... four hours writing it. 
> 
> So tell me if it’s crap or the continuity sucks or it’s completely out of character. No really, I want to know what about it sucks and what actually works.


End file.
